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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Seven Years War in Hesse-Kassel

Well, I have finally have enough Hessians and Hanoverians to fight my French so I'm running a nice battle this week for my gaming group. I've really been focusing on the Seven Years War and have started selling seldom used games and miniatures to fund this project.

As usual, we are using Cartouche 2nd Edition from Piquet Inc for the rules.

Here are some shots of the game before the battle starts.

General Scenario: Hessians\Hanoverians have surprised the French with an early morning attack. Some French units are out of position (I've changed that since the photos were taken) and some are "unformed" trying to rush to the field.

I will post a full battle report later. I'm using my custom terrain boards that I made in 1991 or 1992. They are four different 2' x 4' boards that can be arranged in 8 different combinations. I haven't used them in several years, but they have held up extremely well.

First shot is of the French battle line with the Hanoverians on the hill.

Hanoverians mass for the attack.

Here is the Hanoverians (close) and Hessians (far right) ready for their attack.

Long view of the table. French on the right near the small town.

Hanoverian command inspiring the lads!

Nice overall shot of the battlefield with the French closest to the camera.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Siege of Augusta

(click on photos to enlarge)

In mid-January I went to Siege of Augusta (Augusta, GA) for some gaming and to sell some of my excess games and miniatures in the flea market.

I arrived Friday night and had a great dinner with friends and then played a game of Silent Death (I hope that is the name). It uses Fantasy Flight's Star Wars ships, but seems to be a better set of rules. My Imperial Tie Fighters were eventually wiped out by the X-Wings and Y-Wings. Those guys are tough. Photon torpedoes are supper deadly if they hit and a Tie Fighter can't survive that.

Saturday I carried all my gear to the flea market. I had the trunk and back seat filled up with goodies to sell on the way down to Augusta. I'm happy to report I came back with less than half of what I took down there. I sold over $400 worth of goods in the flea market which made for a great start to Saturday!

I'm not into skirmish level gaming, but the flavor and rules for this one where outstanding. My Martian Rebels managed to hold of an onslaught of Imperial trash including some nefarious Martians that chose wealth over honor to their planet!

The figures were from Parroom Station and were outstanding sculpts and Jerry and Kim are fantastic painters. Thank God they don't make them in 15mm as I would dive into this one pretty quick. :-)

Here are some photos from the game.

Later that night after another awesome dinner with friends (Brian and his family), we got into a demo game of Battlegroup in 15mm.

The terrain and figures were superb, but once again it was a skirmish game with some unique rules which made them hard to figure out quickly. I would think if you had a club and played them regularly they would run smoother and make more sense. Of course, it could have been the martinis I had before we started to play! A couple photos of that game.

Impudent Mortal

This was a new vendor at Siege and I had never seen their product before. Once I looked at the terrain I fell in love with several of the packages. They make terrain for 28mm, 15mm, and 10mm.

I picked up the Bunkers, Pipe Walls, and Horizontal Tanks all in 15mm.

I plan to put together the Horizontal Tanks and Pipes and use them for my Sci-Fi gaming. The bunkers can be used for WW1 - Sci-Fi eras, and I have just finished putting them together.

Horizontal Tanks:

Pipes:

The packages came with six bunkers, and I assembled the first bunker to see how to do it, then made an assembly line to do the last five. All total, it took about 2.5 hours to assemble, while I watched TV. Because they are made of wood and cardboard, they look good as is and can be used now and painted when I have time. They almost look like concrete straight out of the assembly line!

They don't necessarily open from the top, but you can place a stand of infantry or MG on the table, then put the bunker over them and they will hide nicely. You could add some simple additions to make it so that you could lift off the roof. I glued all mine down. Some shots of the bunkers:

Wood frame, top of bunker, and the sides (still in the card frame)

Close-up of the assembled bunker:

Shot of the five I had completed, now they are all done and I hope to pain them soon. I plan on buying several more of their kits as they are easy to build and fit some niche terrain I don't have already.

Siege of Augusta was very well attended and it was nice to see some of my gaming buddies there from around the area.

About the Dictator

Benevolent Dictator of the Charlotte Garrison wargaming club and chieftan of the Burgess Clan.
EMAIL: EBurgess@Carolina.rr.com
Wargaming with miniatures (and rules) since about 1989. Playing with toy soldiers since 1970.
Miniature Wargame Rules Written by me: Guns of Liberty (AWI), Barrage (Piquet), Archon 2nd edition (Piquet), Din of Battle 2nd edition (Piquet), and Death in the Desert (FFL)